


A Flame to Snuff

by crookperkdeck



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, There's a male warden but nothing is specified about him feel free to imagine whatever you like, complicated feelings, relationship progression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 20:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20452784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookperkdeck/pseuds/crookperkdeck
Summary: A second night in the warden's tent leaves Zevran alone to his thoughts.





	A Flame to Snuff

Zevran had no qualms with this the first time, so that made his emerging issues with it the second time all the more frustrating.

He enjoyed his company with the warden; he wouldn't have done this to begin with if he hadn't. He would have simply existed outside of the man's periphery, chipping in when he could and doing this same thing with his other companions when he wasn't. But it was the warden's bed he happened to fall into.

And it was wonderful the first time it happened. Heated, intimate, laughter dancing on their lips. The show of skin not one of vulnerability but of passion, an impulse where one needed to feel and claw at the other man's body as soon as possible. Those were the kinds of encounters Zevran liked best. Those were the _only _kind of encounters Zevran should be having.

But after the fact, when they laid next to each other catching their breath, Zevran asked what this was to be between them. Stupid decision, he knew now. He hadn't ever asked this kind of thing before, but he didn't _need _to in Antiva. There, everything was as superficial as it needed to be, and that was always. That was how he liked it. But this was Fereldan, and he needed to make sure the warden understood the depths, or lack thereof, of their relationship.

_But what about love?_

Evidently he had not.

So when the warden invited him to his bed again, he took the offer like any other, but this time it was...different. With those words coursing through his mind, he couldn't help taking notice of the lingering gazes, the hands growing gentle in his presence, how the heat between them was no longer a raging bonfire but the low, simmering flame of a candle.

Zevran wanted to ignore it but it was impossible to. He was lucky his Crow training came in handy--that which allowed him to put on a temptuous façade in order to conceal his emotions. He didn't know what the warden would see in him otherwise, and it stirred an uneasy feeling within him. This was the vulnerability he never thought he would have to feel in these trysts. This is what he was trying to avoid.

He knew he came here for change, but he hadn't prepared himself for this. Change was random, yes, but before, he had always had his finger on the bowstring that would release it. The warden had come behind him, wrapped his hand around his own and released it for him.

That was a euphemism he wish he could be laughing to himself about, now.

But tonight, he sat upright in the warden's tent, the only sounds of the man's breathing and the crackling fire outside. Alone to his thoughts, where he wished he could be sleeping away as peacefully and heavily as his partner.

Zevran cast a glance at him, taking in the sight of one he would only see when ready to either escape from a lover's window and vanish in the night or to slit their throat and be done with it. No, there was no feeling like that in Zevran's thoughts. There was a sense that this is what could become normal for him, to return to the same tent every night and become entangled in the familiarity of the warden. 

_It's a cage, if a gilded cage._

Did he really think of it as that?

Zevran sighed and finally laid down next to the warden, noticing his movement failing to disturb the other man even for a moment. He had come to the camp exhausted from a run-in with the newest pack of mercenaries come for his head, and then had his night with Zevran, so he was in every respect unable to be roused.

Zevran placed his forehead against the back of the warden's head, the smallest amount of contact since their congress.

"I think it is you who is the better assassin," he said, close to the warden's ear but unafraid. "You've surely plunged a knife so deep into my heart, I can't pull it out, now."

Just as he said it, it was as if this metaphorical knife twisted in his chest and made him ache for the warden to be awake again.

Unfamiliar, vulnerable change.

Unfamiliar, vulnerable _normalcy_.

This was no cage for Zevran to be placed. He had been invited into a new possibility, and it was wonderful and terrifying at the same time. He had simply never considered the possibility was ever his to _have_.

Zevran fell asleep then, mind starting to drift in new directions he had never considered before.


End file.
